


Nott's very bad, no good, terrible day

by Argentum_Industires



Series: Critmas 2018 [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: ...literally, Critmas Exchange 2018, First Meeting, Friendship forged in fire, Gen, prison break - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-12 06:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16867546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argentum_Industires/pseuds/Argentum_Industires
Summary: Oversleeping, back pains, getting caught stealing and being stuck in a cell with someone you're pretty sure hates your kind.What could be worse?Maybe a few walls of flame.





	Nott's very bad, no good, terrible day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stuff_and_nonsense](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuff_and_nonsense/gifts).



> As per the request, this is Nott and Caleb's first meeting. I've tried to stick with what the cast has told us, and liberally used Sam's fireside chat tidbits to fill in the rest.
> 
> Also, this is Nott's pre Caleb POV, aka, humans are either bodies or enemies. Possibly both. Trying to imitate her tone and thought process was... a lot more complicated than I thought it would be, but I hope it comes across!
> 
> Enjoy and merry Critmas!

If there was such a thing as a very long, no good, really quite terrible day, Nott was right in the middle of it.

  
First, there was the fact that she had overslept. A difficult feat to achieve when one is strapped to the undercarriage of a cart, and yet one she had entirely indulged in. A fact she'd only realised when the hooves of the horses clip-clopped over the uneven cobblestones of the bridge, which was about three hours journey from the farm she had been aiming for, under the advice of a nicer-than-most halfling. With a sigh, she'd bid goodbye to the idea of easily catchable farm animals, and let her back hit the ground as the cart came to a rolling stop.

  
Scurrying through the town with pebbles still digging into her skin, she’d tried to get a lay of the land – fastidiously keeping away from the rushing water of the river – when she’d seen _him_.

  
The most beautiful, shiniest, most glittering emerald her eyes had ever landed upon. Like all good ones, though, he was attached to his baggage.  
That baggage happened to be the local baron, who happened to have really keen senses, and honestly that wouldn’t have been a problem if not for the fact that at the exact moment she’d reached over, a villager had thrown a bucketful of waste into the street, making her flinch and fumble.

  
Honestly, prison wasn’t so bad. She had a straw cot, a bowl of day old water, and though the guards hadn’t spared any insults (or kicks, her ribs whined morosely), they had been far too afraid of her teeth to reach into the bandages wrapped over her lower jaw. Which just so happened to be where she kept her tools, a ragtag collection of hand made and mage-hand stolen lock picking devices. All she had to do was wait for a guard to go take a piss, so she could jimmy the already two pin loose lock.

  
Just as she was debating the best way of getting it open, the metal door was wrenched open, a body marched through at spear point as it muttered in a foreign accent. Suddenly her small cell became a lot more crowded.

This was going to be fun.

  
*

  
This was not fun.

  
The body refused to offer more than a few words, supplying in its weird tone that it had been caught stealing some fresh apples. Further, it appeared that the guards had bladders of steel, because they never broke their patrol. For being a shithole town, they had dedicated security.

  
As the minutes ticked by in this very long, no good day, Nott found herself observing the body, which had tried to make itself as small as possible in one corner of the cell, probably horrified at the prospect of sharing space with one of her kind. It had unkempt red hair, dirt streaks up its face that mingled with the darkened skin where a guard’s pommel must have hit it. Its blue eyes swivelled around anxiously, every so often landing on her before flitting away. It looked semi skeletal, exhibiting none of the paunchiness of the baron or even the musculature of the guards, and it clutched a single tattered book in its arms, close to its chest.

A guard walked by, methodically, and stopped to look at her. It spit into the cell, before moving on.

  
She needed a drink.

  
*

  
The first sign something had gone wrong was that the guard wasn’t there. She had gotten used to hearing the tap of boots along the dimly lit wooden floor every five minutes for the past six hours, so when they didn’t come, the silence was almost disquieting.

  
Then the body suddenly straightened up, head swivelling back and forth as it gave an excellent impression of a spooked deer. That was when she smelled it, the faint smoky tang that announced the distant, yet encroaching, sound of flames crackling along wooden beams.

  
If one had been dead drunk, or obtuse, or asleep though, the pounding of boots as two guards ran by was probably the most damning sign that this day had definitely gone to shit.

  
Muffled yells made their way up the hallway, a guard rushing back in to frantically unlock the cell in front of theirs, which contained a young looking villager. In the mere moments from that first missed round to the jangling of keys, the cell had gotten almost swelteringly hot, the hallway no longer dark as the shadow of the guard got shorter and shorter, flames beginning to lick the roof above them.

  
The red headed body shouted for the guard, for release, and Nott could see the decision before the key holder had even sneered in her direction, taking off with the younger prisoner.

  
They were on their own.

  
Pushing past the aghast body of her cell mate, she pulled her picks from inside the bandages, before ripping the entire cover off her face to wrap it around her hands, trying to avoid burning her fingers as she got to work on the metal lock. With every second, the situation got worse, the fire making its way down the wall behind them, and she was just about to pray to the gods when the last tumbler clicked, the bars swinging open.

  
They dashed out of the cell, just in time to see the back wall of the prison collapse on their right, offering a glimpse of the forest beyond the village. A way out, if it weren’t for the walls of flames encroaching on both sides.

  
Before she could think any further, she felt the body grab her by the scruff of the neck, holding her close as it threw itself into the flames. She squeezed her eyes shut, ready to feel the searing pain of fire engulf them.

  
Nothing burned.

  
The body kept their momentum going, carrying them both to freedom, ragged breaths mingling with the roar of the fire as the prison collapsed behind them. They didn’t stop until they were several hundred feet into the forest, hidden by the trees and the brush.

  
The body dropped her down, collapsing next to her. All was silent but for their exhaled pants, adrenaline and exertion rushing through their veins. They gazed at one another. She was without a disguise, her identity as clear as the moonlight bearing down on them. It was shaking, hands running compulsively over the cover of the book it still clutched tightly.

  
Neither moved. Neither ran from the horror of the monster in front of them.

  
_His_ name was Caleb, and from that moment, they ran together.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, Kudos and Comments feed my soul


End file.
